The shop is telling me I need a 90 index for my cressida... so they're not wanting to put on the lower profile tires that are available for my 15x8 wheels. I see some cars on here that are riding on 195/50... I'm imagining those pics I've seen are of tires with about a 82 load index. I was just wondering how low can I really go?

Go to a different tire store. Seriously.

Or better yet, don't tell them what you're putting them on.

haha... I thought of all that of course...but I still wanted to see if people are riding lower than what I'm looking at so I could at least say "well this guy's riding on 82 and I'm looking at 86 so I'm probably fine.."

I'm not sure anyone I know could tell you the load rating of their tires.

But I am curious to see what folks say...

Dude, you are in Dallas, TX. I thought that was the land of the free and the home of the well armed? I haven't had any issues like that in Oklahoma. Seriously, they won't put a tire on because it won't meet the load requirement? Follow John's sage advice and go to a different tire shop. I would hate to think that Oklahoma is better than Texas in two things now...
By the way, I am running 205/50/15s and 195/50/15s on the celica. I had no problems finding a tire shop to mount the tires. Heck, buy the tires and go to one of the hispanic tire shops, they will mount just about anything tire wise.

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1976 RA29 project car, now a driver!!!!!
1985 MX72 soon to be...
1985 Celica GT, driving the wheels off
1991 MX83 soon to be 7MGTE

No doubt. They also seem to be the only shops that know how to streeeeetch tires too.

The look on the guy's face at the big chain tire store when I asked if he could put a 195/45-15 on a 15x8 was priceless...

And trust me, you're fine. All of the 195/50-15 tires I've seen have at least a 850-900 pound load limit. Your Cressida doesn't weigh over 3600 pounds does it? Shouldn't anyway...

My buddy is running 195/50-15 on his DD X7 Cress.

I'm running 195/50-15 on my 280ZX and I drift the shit out of it.

Discount Tire is extremely lame (I don't mind throwing names, come at me bro) when it comes to getting shorter tires. They don't understand that older cars came with HUGE tires.

The rule is "supposedly" for mini truck guys and other things who were running WAY small tires and blowing the sidewalls (which I still think is BS.)

BTW, 195/45 on an 8 isn't even stretch haha I can mount that shit all day!